Sunny Travels and Delicious Moments: Green Tea Cake with Lemon Honey Buttercream

I should really be studying for my spanish final and finishing my final paper for cultural geography... but I think I'm gonna procrastinate and do this instead.

Green tea cake with lemon honey buttercream

I'm honestly surprised with how this cake turned out. It was quite a challenge putting it all together, especially since I've only done a layered cake once! But my friend Michelle showed me this recipe from Building Buttercream while we were looking up cake recipes for our friend Kerri's surprise birthday party (check out her blog here). It's a green tea layered cake with a lemon honey buttercream. I love green tea! So, naturally, I had to try it.

I made some changes from the original recipe from Building Buttercream, but it still tasted great and I'm definitely keeping this recipe. I think next time I'll try making cupcakes... we'll see how that goes. But it turned out to be a great birthday cake last night and (from what I've heard) everyone loved it!

Kerri's birthday cake!

So instead of using the Italian Meringue Buttercream in Building Buttercream's recipe, I decided to go the easy route and just use regular butter cream :)

...

Okay, that's a lie. I really did try to make the Italian Meringue Buttercream - but it was a total fail. I'm not gonna go into details about what happened. But, let's just say that stubborn form of frosting ruined my afternoon, splattered all over me and Michelle, didn't work out, and it was really sad.

Really ****in' sad.

ow ow!

I had a feeling things were gonna get messy...

After the Italian Meringue Kitchen Massacre, Michelle eventually put an apron on.

Making frosting is never a clean and simple task.

One day though, one day, I'm gonna get it right next time and it will be awesome. You'll know when that day comes because I will publish a very happy and exciting post.

On another note, aside from using regular buttercream, I made a mint-sea foam ombre for the frosting and adjusted some of the ingredient measurements.

I seriously love mint and sea-foam green

For this recipe I basically doubled all of the measurements because I wanted to make a bigger cake than what Building Buttercream's recipe made. Even after doubling the recipe, I still had to make two whole batches at separate times because I only had 2 cake pans and I wanted 4 layers for the cake.
But I aside from doubling the recipe, I used a little more matcha because I wanted a stronger green tea taste. And since the flavor of lemon stands out, I didn't want it to over power the taste of the cake. So I used zest from about 1/2 of a lemon for the icing between cake layers and the rest of the icing I used was plain buttercream frosting for the crumb coating and creating the mint-sea foam ombre.

Sifted flours, matcha, salt, and baking powder

It's a pretty simple recipe:

Preheat the oven, grease and flour the cake pans, sift the dry ingredients together (all-purpose flour, cake flour, green tea matcha, salt, and baking powder); set them aside.

In a large bowl, beat together the eggs and oil. Add the sugar gradually, beat until smooth, and stir in the vanilla.

Once that's all combined, beat in the flour and yogurt - alternately. I used a 1/4 cup of flour mixture for every scoop of yogurt I added while beating them together. After all of that is mixed, smooth, and has a ribbon-like-consistency, pour them into the prepared cake pans.

It takes about 20-30 minutes to bake. I set my timer for 10 minutes, then rotated each pan 180 degrees so that it cooks evenly on all sides, and judged another 10 minutes would be enough to finish the job. Just check the cake by poking at it with a toothpick/fork/some small pointy object and make sure it doesn't come out sticky/wet with cake batter.
If it does, it's probably not done yet.

I'm so happy that the cake turned out great! After taking the time to put the layers together and decorate, it was definitely worth it. There's nothing better than making everyone around you happy, especially when you know it's because you gave them something tasty to put in their stomach. Plus, no one got sick, we all had fun, the birthday girl was happy, and therefore we were all happy! It was such a great night. I love my friends - they really are the best!

Happy Birthday, Kerri!

Recipe:

Green Tea Layer Cake:

Makes two 9-inch round cake layers.

Prep time: 45 minutes

Cook time: 20-30 minutes

*If you want 4 cake layers, you will need to make 2 batches of this*

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons of powdered green tea (matcha)

1 1/4 cup of white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/2 eggs

1 cup plain yogurt

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 ° F. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.
Sift together all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, and green tea matcha into a bowl; set aside.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and vegetable oil together, gradually add the white sugar, and mix until smooth. Stir in the vanilla.
Alternately beat in the flour mixture and yogurt; for every 1/4 cup of green tea flour, follow with a scoop of yogurt. Mix the batter until smooth and incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.
Bake cakes in the preheated oven for about 20 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick/cake tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes on a wire rack before turning them out of the pans

Lemon Honey Buttercream:

Prep time: 3 minutes

Cook time: 5-7 minutes

Total: 10 minutes

Serves: ~ 4 cups of buttercream frosting

*I always want left over frosting in case of a cake emergency!*

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of unsalted butter (5 sticks of butter or 1.5 pounds)

6-7 cups of powdered sugar

4 teaspoons of salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

~ 1/4 cup of milk or heavy cream (optional)

Honey to taste

Zest from 1/2 a lemon (1/4 of lemon zest for cake layers and other 1/4 for crumb coating)

Method:

Beat unsalted butter for a few minutes on medium speed, then high, until creamed.
Begin to gradually add 4-5 cups of powdered sugar in 1/2 cup portions and turn your mixer on low when you add the powdered sugar (unless you want butter and powdered sugar all over your face). Do this until all the sugar is incorporated and creamy.
Increase mixer speed to medium, add vanilla extract and salt; beat for about 3 minutes.
If your frosting needs to be a little more stiff, add the remaining powdered sugar or more; mix until it sets to your preference.

If your frosting becomes too stiff and you want to thin it out, add a little milk or heavy cream in tablespoons until it's the right texture you want

Split the frosting into 2 batches:

1 cup for the cake layers

Mix in the honey and lemon zest into this batch

The remaining frosting will be used for the mint-sea foam ombre (will get into that later) and crumb coating.

Building the Green Tea Layer Cake with Mint-Sea Foam Ombre and Lemon Honey Buttercream:

Level and tort the cake layers so you have 4 even cake layers.

I used a ruler and serrated knife to do this (I don't have a cake leveler). Use the ruler to measure the height you want/need to level your cake layers. I measured about a 1/2 inch and marked the cake with a serrated knife.
Mark the level of your cake layer in four corresponding cut marks going around the cake by cutting parallel to the counter, going towards the center and around the cake.

DON'T cut straight to the center of the cake yet!

Work your way around the cake by cutting parallel to the counter at each cut mark (it'll keep the layer even and flat). Slowly do this to each cut mark around the cake until you can connect the cuts as you rotate the cake.
Once all the 4 cut marks are connected, slowly cut in towards the center while rotating your cake to keep an even layer until the whole center of the cake has been cut.
Carefully remove the top of the cake you are cutting from your created cake layer; set aside.
Do this to even all 4 cake layers.

Place the 1st cake layer on your decorating surface. Spread a thin layer of the lemon honey buttercream evenly over the cake layer. Place the 2nd cake layer on top, and repeat until you have all 4 cake layers - don't frost the top layer yet.
Spread a thin coat of the plain buttercream all over the top and sides of the cake. This is the crumb coating of the cake - so don't worry about the crumbs! Once evenly spread, set in the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes for the frosting to set.

Tip: Ice your frosting spatula by placing it in ice cold water before, and in between icing spreads. This will prevent your crumb coat from having too many crumbs, which can sometimes be a problem (I learned this from my good friend Mike)! :)

While that's setting, start prepping for the mint-sea foam ombre with the remaining buttercream.

Divide the buttercream into 4 batches with one portion larger than the others - this will be used for the top of the cake.
In the 3 smaller portions, mix the darkest color in one, then medium in the second, and lightest in the third.

You can make the largest portion of frosting a light mint green OR keep it white and have the other colors be an even gradient to blend into it. It's your choice, just make sure each color is an even gradient and none of them are too dark compared to the other.

Remove the cake from the refrigerator. Frost the top with white, or lightest color, of buttercream.
Using a large piping tip (you can use a frosting bag or plastic bag with the end corner cut off), pipe your darkest color of frosting around the bottom quarter of the cake (this was the first cake layer for me since I had 4 layers).
Repeat with the next layer and medium shade color, and so on with the lighter quarter layer, until you pipe white - or your lightest - shade of frosting on the top quarter of the cake.
Smooth the sides of the cake using an offset spatula, or pastry scraper/dough cutter, and make sure the colors don't mix together (I had to continuously wipe and rinse off my spatula). You want the colors to gradually blend to the lightest color on top - not mix together!
Add any other cake decorations you want, like fondant, and voilà! Enjoy!